Big in Japan.

You have not completed your Foreigner-in-Japan experience until you have appeared on Japanese TV. We have now punched that slot on our gaijin card. Look for us on Osaka TV on April 30th at 8:30. Or look for us on the Osaka TV cutting room floor. (By the way, we weren't in Osaka or anywhere near it, but at a rest area between Tokyo and Nagoya.)


They asked us to laugh. We laughed. I guess we did OK. At first we failed because we didn't follow direction. He told us to go "Fu Fu Fu Fu Fu". It took us a few takes to get that he wanted us to laugh. I guess "Fu Fu Fu Fu" translates as "Tee hee hee hee."

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More news about vending machines.

Some coffee machines have TVs on the front. They advertise and entice, and then when you buy a coffee, they pay off. They give a video of your coffee being produced.




Also, here is a photo of a newspaper vending machine. It drops one paper down, and has different papers for your reading pleasure. A fair bit more advanced than the square boxes used in the states. This cool technology might be just what the newspaper industry needs in order to appeal with the younger generation with their internets and new fangled pod transistor radio and whatnot.


And as previous posts noted, very little food is available in vending machine. But I found one. Here is the hot food vending machine that cooks up frozen french fries, rice balls, and (joy!) octopus balls.



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Mata Ashta
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